Barack Obama, Secret Restaurant Critic

A Chicago food show featuring amateur reviewers will air a “lost Obama episode” from 2001 featuring the then-state Senator as a restaurant critic. The Obama episode of “Check, Please” will air for the first time Jan. 16 — there’s a brief preview clip on the site now.

A Chowhound who saw an excerpt commented that, while the younger Obama was full of charisma, “for someone so slender he talked a lot about the johnny cakes and peach cobbler.”

Why didn’t the show air back in ’01? The producers tell the Chicago Tribune, “the president-elect was too good — too thoughtful, too articulate, not enough of an amateur.”